Saturday, July 21, 2007

You've probably seen or heard stories about food marketers, supposedly scaling down their marketing to children. Great story, except they have a lot of wiggle room about what they plan to market, and how. Packaging is the one place they obviously won't give up, with boxes of cereal saying more about the characters like Shrek and Spiderman than the contents.

So while the Grocery Manufacturer's Association is busy debating the topic how to do the minimum and seem like its members are helping the consumer, it's good to take a look at another story about actually anticipating a target audience's needs and doing something about it.

Samsung has started installing charging stations for cell-phone and mobile accessory at Los Angeles International Airport. It sems so simple, that you wonder why carriers like Verizon or T-Mobile hadn't thought of it before. It's a great way for a brand to communicate that it understands what its customers (and all potential ones) face when traveling.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Yesterday, IABC's Phoenix chapter
put together a terrific meeting on something that's on everyone's
radar. I suspect the topic ("Using SEO & Other PR Tactics to
Communicate with Social Communities in a Web 2.0 World") was
intentionally long and geeky to make a point. More on this later.

MarketWire
had pried open the controversial but hot topic of Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) and Social Media. Whenever these two buzz phrases
occur in one sentence, advertising agencies, media relations people and
marketers get a little hot around the collar. I know, because I used to
work for a SEO-meets marketing company. There are lots of myths and
concerns out there. Just a year ago SEO seemed like a lot of pixie dust
before things like Twitter and User generated Content showed up. "Social bookmarking" sounded like something Paris Hilton does when thumbing through National Inquirer.

Unfortunately, the world inside corporate marketing is still looking
at what's unfolding before us as pixie dust 2.0. Look around you. The
world of marketing and PR is roughly divided into people who think "we
don't have a budget for this crap" and those who go "could we upload
this sucker to YouTube?" So it's about time we discuss Google Juice, and Digg, and the social media press release, and what in the world is Facebook up to, trying to upstage our beloved search engines.

Could people game the search engine, someone asked? Do "Diggs" mean
anything a few days after the story breaks? Was there some 'white-hat'
way to get better rankings on search results? Everyone probably knew
the answer to that last one. Sure, there are black-hat methods of
sneaking past the algorithm, and there's marketing.

You don't need to know how this algorithm thing works, but if you
accept the logic behind it, then you gotta work on it. Good case in
point: Southwest Airlines.
Three years ago, they optimized a press release by editing it based on
search terms they had been tracking. They tracked the results and saw a
direct correlation to a spike in sales. They won an award for this. It's a matter of crafting headlines and knowing where to drop in a hyperlink, and a meta tag.

Which brings me to the MarketWire topic. Google (or Yahoo) the words
"SEO PR social media" and see if IABC Phoenix is anywhere in sight. Now
Google (or Yahoo) the topic (Using SEO & Other PR Tactics to
Communicate with Social Communities in a Web 2.0 World) and see what
pops up at the top of your search results. Brilliant huh?

Monday, July 16, 2007

So you've been placed on hold (again) and are convinced that customer service has left the building --for Bangalore, perhaps.

But there's a neat solution taking shape. It's called NoPhoneTrees.com,
and it could eliminate the phone-tree headache. It's from a San
Francisco-based company called Bringo. How it works is amazing: You
click on the company you want to call, and enter your phone number and hang up. NoPhoneTrees dials the company,
circumvents their phone tree, and calls you back when you are in queue
for the next customer service rep., shaving off valuable on-hold time.
Perfect for days when you're multi-tasking, or your minutes are running out.

It's still in demo mode so it looks like a web site with limited lists of lists. (In insurance, Humana and Geico are listed, but no State Farm). But The company says the full service will launch soon.

I see great potential. I don't know about you, but I add pauses into
my speed dials so that the technology zips through the phone tree of
frequently called numbers --airlines, credit card companies, even
calling cards, and doctor's offices. I would like to see how this could
work when I'm driving, and don't want to tie up the phone while waiting in
the queue to check a flight status. What if the service wold
allow us to set a day and time in advance, so we could get into the
phone queue of the airline, three days down the road just to make sure
the flight's not delayed?

What's this to do with marketing communication? Consider
this. It's a free service to anyone, but as the go-between, it could
easily ask customers to pay back for the service with their attention.
No I don't mean listen to an ad --through that's the predictable model
to go after. It could be a 15- second survey of the company you just
spoke to. Surveys are everywhere. You've seen companies use register
receipts inviting customers to do a phone survey, redeemable for a gift
card or generous coupon. To use the airline example again, if US Airways
gave you 100 air miles if you answered a 5-question survey at the end
of your phone-tree-avoided call to Flight Reservations, would you say
no? If Kinkos gave offered 10-color copies, or Borders gave you a coupon for a latte for taking a survey?

Customers will trade off attention for value-added service or
products. Marketers value timely feedback. Someone who allows you to to
put a spike through the heart of the phone tree could create a win-win
situation for both.

Friday, July 13, 2007

If David Ogilvy was alive, I bet he'd have very cool blog. He'd have a podcast and rant about writing and pig-headed Creatives. And a Flickr account, for sure. More about David at the end of this post.

Why do I make this strange correlation between a dead adman and a new media-slash-social media company like Flickr? I got an email from Yahoo Photos yesterday informing me that they were porting my albums to Flickr, which as most of you know, is owned by Yahoo. They were all cheery about this, and I followed their prompt. Within ten minutes I had a response from
“The Flickreenos.” It started out with “Yee har! All your photos have
been imported from your Yahoo! Photos account…”

Before this were two other emails written by a seemingly highly caffeinated communicator (or very human one) in the tech department. Zero corporate-speak, almost like the buddy-talk we engage in on Facebook. Coming from a mega company like Flickr, that's now in eight countries, and has some 24 million visitors a month, I must say I was impressed.

It’s this kind of upbeat communication that I miss,
when someone sends me a legally-whetted, PR-sanctioned postcard or email these days,
with my name dropped into appropriate slots to personalize it and make
it look like they know me.

My point?Variable-data printing,
a sophisticated form of mail-merge is great, but should not be a
crutch. It should not replace genuine, passionate communication. I
don’t know where the good writers have been locked up in organizations these
days, but we don’t see a lot of Flickreenos-type communications.

Which brings me to Mr. Ogilvy. I was thumbing through my old copy of The Unpublished Ogilvy, and couldn't help noticing that this copywriter at heart sort of anticipated the Cluetrain idea, often asking people to spike their college-bred stilted communication and communicate like humans. He came out
with such gems as “Woolly people write woolly memos, woolly letters and
woolly speeches.” This was in the early eighties, when we all know, MBA-speak was all the rage! “Write the way you talk. Naturally,” he often said.

I could just hear the man who once wrote stunningly human copy for Mercedes Rolls-Royce go Yeeeee har! about Flickr’s un-woolly communication.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Stu Reed, a Motorola VP and a passionate proponent of 'straight talk' checked most of the boxes in communication this morning in a very engaging presentation.

Reed, was feted by IABC as this year's Excel (stands for "Excellence in Communication Leadership") award winner, which is to say he's the cherry on top of communication this year at the international conference. The kind of boss everyone would want to have.

In his straight talk about straight talk, he admitted he started off getting a 'C' in communications when Motorola conducted an audit. His lessons learned are well worth recounting:

The most important communications should address the 'What's in it for me' factor.

Communication is pretty simple, but binary: Go/No go.

Communication is a process, not a fad.

Don't communicate only when it feels good.

Be proactive, even when you have to do reactive communications.

But there was one thing that stuck out --remember I said he 'checked most of the boxes.' Stu is still not ready to launch into blogs. He's holding on to the belief that he would rather make sure his team enhances existing communication processes before adding one more thing.

Controversial? Yes. At a later session this topic came up. You know, the 'what to do if your bosses don't get social media' question. To give Reed credit, he 'gets' the transparency, and the part about responding quickly and directly, and has done a terrific job sans social media. He was also largely talking of employee communications.

But as the critics would put it, engaging your different constituents, be they internal or external, is all about conversations not just communications.

Sidebar:None of this is to imply that Motorola execs do not blog. Padmasree Warrior,
Motorola's executive vice president and chief technology
officer, has a wonderful blog called Bits At The Edge. She writes in a style that belies her IT side, with the kind of openness that we sometimes long for in corporate communications. In one post earlier this year titled Mea Culpa Warrior refers to a Dilbert strip about embarrassing blogs.:

I know why I feel blue. It is unadulterated guilt! My blog! I have shamelessly neglected it for almost a month.Now God is messaging me through Dilbert...Sigh.

Mea Culpa? Seems like they've got straight talk in their DNA, with or without blogs.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Discussing what constitutes a good logo, is as safe as discussing what makes up a great cup of tea.

In the latter, it's anything from the leaf structure, to the mountain elevation in which the shrub is grown, to the fermemtation process of the dry leaf, the water in which it is brewed, the milk you add, to the ritual (and crockery used) in serving the beverage. Tastes change, and ultimately it's the end user's perception rather than the 'tea taster's' that is relevant.

The Vancouver logo could add some perspective. It wasn't "awarded' to an agency, but was the result of a competition opened to the public, in the early spirit of, you know, user-generated content. There too, people weren't happy. (It was called the 'offspring of the Michelin Man, among other things!)

But there was a difference. In Vancouver, it was the design community that protested most. In the UK it was the hoi polloi that was livid--who said the logo looked like "two characters from The Simpsons engaged in a sexual act!"

Vancouver threw the logo design open to anyone. The brief specified that the logo must."

Capture and reflect the unique image and spirit of Canada, Vancouver and Whistler

Capture both Canada's passion for winter sport, and the energy and excitement of the Olympic Winter Games

Provide a broad symbolic platform for interpretive storytelling â an emblem that can convey a range of meanings

The winners explained that it represented the "inukshuk" or that which stands in the capacity of a person" -- a sort of a guide to help people find their way through the
wilderness. It stands for friendship in Inuktitut.

What does the London logo stand for? It was left to Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the 2012 Olympic commitee, who defending it saying:

"We don't do bland. This is not a bland city"

That's it?

Joe Gomez, from the UK sent me this, calling it an ill-fitting jigsaw, and a broken window that is"jagged and wobbly to look good on their laptops, mobiles and TV screens."

If Sebastian Coe is the equivalent of the 'tea taster,' I would rather trust Joe Public -you know, people like Joe.

Friday, June 08, 2007

I had mentally dismissed this double spread ad for Conde Nast
--or so I thought. Excuse my wanting to deconstruct the ad to make a
point. The context and scale of the photograph adds to the incongruity
of the founder of Wikipedia
perched on a railing in one corner of the Library. Its magnificient
cathedral-like arches, and everything else in balance create a great
metaphor. You just know that this guy is here to quietly turn things on
his head --in a good way, mind you.

I know why that image came to mind. The jacket cover of Miscellaneous has a blurb from Mr. Wales lovingly complaining:

"Just when I thought I understood the world, David Wenberger turns it upside down - and rightside up again."

Sure, it's one of those sweeping 'advance praise for' comments you've
seen on many other jacket blurbs heaping praise on a new book about the
digital economy.

But it's hard to exaggerate this book's analysis. Weinberger, who co-authored The Cluetrain Manifesto,
notes that the card catalog system gives us a 'narrow slit' to look
through the world of books, but 'imperfect classification' in the
digital world, is paradoxically richer. He's referring of course to
tags and links that create this thing called 'social knowing' (the term
'social media' isn't in the index) by showing us connections, and
putting bits of knowledge into context.

Which is exactly what the book does, drawing on centuries of historical
precedents, to make that point of miscellany over and over again.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Companies love to invent words. To add a word or phrase to the lexicon is often thought of as an accomplishment. After all, if thousands, no millions, of people use your trademarked word or phrase, it means (a) they like you (b) they remember you and (c) the idea has spread.

We have plenty of examples of this. From brand names such as Bikini and Google to pithy slogans such as "Fair and Balanced" to the unbelievably long "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun." (If you were born after 1975, here's who's line that is.)

Many brand managers dream of such a nirvana when their product of service gets it into the Oxford English dictionary, right? Well.....

It was probably this kind of drunken brand-management stupor that got McDonald's to trademark the term McJob in 1984. It was intended to be the name of a training program for handicapped people. In 2003, it Miriam-Webster recognized it as a word, as did OED before that, but with a completely different definition.

Today, McDonald's is trying to re-define that word, and possibly delete the notion that a McJob is one with poor career prospects. They make the point that many of their top ranking people started out at the bottom.

I am with them on this. No-one belittles the Pizza delivery guys, window cleaners or the UPS drivers or the companies they work for. I'm a somewhat frequent visitor to the Golden Arches, and I've seen it change over the past five years. Their service is excellent, and their staff highly motivated. Can't say the same of so many others working at big brand name stores who don't seem like they're lovin' it.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I've always wondered why someone had not come up with a service that allowed drivers to call up someone in another car in front of them, or in the next lane.

Ome compamy has. A new service called SameLane requires drivers to register with their license plate number and a cell phone. They then put up a sticker in their window announcing they are part of the SameLane network. The SameLane mobile number (not their personal mobile number) is also displayed.

When someone in the next lane wants to call up that driver, they call theSameLane number, enter the license plate number, and the call is patched through.

It has some potential, because it's an opt-in network, so receiving a call won't be considered a nuisance. Privacy is maintained by the network, since SameLane says the phone number of the receiver ewill never be disclosed.

But there are potential problems, the first of which is the liability of promoting drivers, rather than passengers, to make calls while driving. SameLane compares 'talking to strangers' akin to chatting to someone in a Starbuck's line. The comparison is obviously misleading.

But it's an interesting development. Treating thousands of vehicles going in the same direction as you, as a network.